


here to haunt me

by crucify (victimsoul)



Series: death to death [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Canon-Typical Supernatural Phenomena, F/F, Getting Together, Ghost Hunter!Martin Blackwood, Ghost Hunter!Tim Stoker, Ghost!Georgie Barker, Ghost!Jonathan Sims, Ghost/Ghost Hunter girlfriends!!!, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Slow Burn, melanie is already canonically a ghost hunter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22980997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victimsoul/pseuds/crucify
Summary: Melanie is the host of Ghost Hunt U.K., a failing ghost hunter show on YouTube that needs a viral moment to claw back its waning success. She decides to investigate the areas most ghost hunters dismiss as too dangerous, starting with a house allegedly haunted by malicious ghosts known as Terminus and the Ceaseless Watcher.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: death to death [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660273
Comments: 28
Kudos: 296





	1. call off your ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! If you enjoyed this work/what the girlfriends content in general please check out @wtgfsweek on twitter & tumblr! It will take place april 5th - april 11th.

“Hello everyone, I’m Melanie King, and this is my assistant-”

“Co-host, Tim Stoker! Hello everyone!”

“Assistant. And this is-

“Ghost Hunt U.K.!”

Melanie and Tim posed together as they said their last line simultaneously. They were in front of a camera manned by the third member of their crew, Martin Blackwood, in the entry hall of an abandoned house. Martin gave them a thumbs up and they broke character, returning to their casual stances. Melanie crossed her arms over her chest and Tim stood straight as he turned towards her to ask, “Are you sure about this, Melanie? you know this house is… one of the weird ones.”

Melanie did know this. There were certain haunted places that even hardcore ghost hunters avoided. That especially hardcore ghost hunters avoided. There was an unspoken agreement in the ghost hunter community that there are some places you don’t go to. For your own safety. There is a certain respect you need to have for your own life _and_ the supernatural to be respected by the community. Despite Tim’s laid back attitude, he was definitely part of the ghost hunting community that believed in avoiding the dangerous hauntings. However, Melanie had never been good at playing a role someone else had picked out for her, and had recently decided she wanted to investigate the non-investigable, in the hopes it would boost her show’s popularity. And Tim trusted Melanie's judgment. Besides, she could be very convincing

“Yes, Tim, I know that. You only reminded me a couple hundred times. But these ghosts aren't even that dangerous. They haven’t even been documented doing anything malicious, ever. Worst case scenario we just don’t release the footage.” Melanie snapped back at him.

Then, as if they were living the most clichéd ghost story ever, every light they brought into the house switched off at once. A high-pitched but recognizably Martin-esque voice let out a squeak as the lights went out, and Melanie couldn’t see, but she knew Tim was giving her an “I-told-you-so” look.

Melanie flicked the switch on her flashlight back on. Luckily it looked like the bulb wasn’t out, it had just been turned off, and the room again flooded with light. She saw that her researcher was, indeed, giving her a look that screamed “I-told-you-so.”

“We’re not backing out now Tim, they’re just messing with us, they’re not trying to hurt us. That’s a good sign. Let’s go film the background information.”

Martin and Tim exchanged a look, but otherwise did as they were told.

* * *

“For this episode we’re exploring 60 Hampton Place. It’s haunted by a few ghosts, including a woman who committed suicide after allegedly learning the secret of life and death and a man who gouged his own eyes out, known as Terminus and the Ceaseless Watcher respectively.”

Tim was practicing to record background information on the ghosts they were hunting when it happened. Tim did research for Ghost Hunt U.K., which meant he found the locations they filmed at and did the background research on the alleged supernatural incidents there. He had recorded a million times before and didn’t have to memorize anything, but he still liked to reread his lines beforehand to make sure he knew what he was saying. He was sitting in a chair in the house's living room in front of the camera, but it wasn’t on yet. Tim was reading off the paper, occasionally looking up at the camera as if he was being filmed. It was Melanie who noticed that something was wrong.

“Martin, why are you recording? Turn that off.”

Martin looked up at her, confused, from where he was contemplating the notebook he had brought with him, “I’m not Melanie, you told me this was a practice run.”

“Then why is the camera on?”

Martin got up to check and found that the camera was indeed recording. He turned it off and looked at Tim and Melanie. “I didn’t turn that on.”

Melanie rolled her eyes. She was a kind boss, but Martin did have a tendency to make mistakes, so she scoffed at him denying it, “I hope you have enough storage space to be recording practice footage like that.”

That reminded Martin that he _had_ neglected to check the storage on the camera before they headed out. He navigated to the camera’s settings to check, and found that way more of the storage was being used up than he thought. He checked the videos section and found that there were only two, just as there technically should be: the intro from the entrance hall, and the video that had accidentally just been taken. He looked at the data for each video and found the latter was taking up way more space than a 7 minute video should. He hit play on the video, curious as to what happened.

When he saw what was on the footage, he gasped and stopped it immediately.

“What? What’s wrong Martin?” Tim looked at him with concern.

Martin picked up the camera and brought it over to the pair, “You guys have to see this, I don’t know what happened!”

Melanie took the camera offered to her, angled it so Tim could see as well and pressed play, only to gasp as well when she saw it. The video footage was mildly corrupted, with static around the edges and bits of white noise interrupting the footage, but that wasn’t the most shocking part. The most shocking part was the figure standing slightly behind Melanie and Tim’s chairs, directly in the center of the camera’s view. The figure was… impossible, but somehow recognizably staring directly into the camera with all of its eyes. It glowed a slight green around each eye and seemed to absorb some of the light in the room with the strength of its gaze. It was starting to give Tim a headache to look at it for the strain it was putting on his brain to process it.

Melanie gestured at the camera in excitement, “Look at that! We can use this! People will eat this shit up!” Tim looked at her like she grew an extra head.

“Are you kidding, Mel? That’s the fucking _Ceaseless Watcher_ , do you know what happens to people who try to hunt this guy? We need to get out of here.” 

Melanie stood up so Tim had to look up at her. She might have been 5’2”, but she was not above taking the opportunity to look down in emphasis when she could. “First, don’t call me Mel. Second, we need this, Tim, and you know it. You’ve seen our channel, you know we’re losing viewers faster than we’re gaining. We need something big, and I don’t mean a fluke temperature spike or a fake EMF reading. We’re doing this the right way, and we can be respectful while we do it.”

Tim looked at Martin. Martin looked at Tim. It was true, they really did need something big, or else they would be in the business of looking for a new job. And they knew despite her hard-headedness, Melanie really did respect and love her craft. Tim nodded and Martin took the camera back from Melanie. They would do a real recording of the background information, then continue looking through the house.

* * *

They were only a couple hours into their investigation and Martin was really starting to doubt their decision. He didn’t have much room to protest, as Melanie was very generous to hire him as a cameraman when he clearly didn’t know anything other than “point the camera at the target and press the button,” but he wanted it on the record that he was really having doubts about this. Creepy things kept happening with the camera as they moved through the house, and while Melanie was overjoyed, Martin was uneasy and Tim, as unreadable as always, seemed angry or even… scared? So yeah, Martin wasn’t sure about this at all. The last straw for him was when he got the camera all set up for a shot of a dark doorway, looked through the viewfinder, and saw a giant eye peering out at him from the darkness. 

“Melanie, can we please call it a day? We have enough spooky footage to last a lifetime.”

Melanie looked like she actually might have been contemplating it when she looked at Martin. This place must have been getting to her too, if she was considering giving up before the night was over. However, she was still Melanie King. “Yeah, a lifetime of mediocre YouTube videos averaging a couple thousand views. You can go take a break if you want, but we’re not leaving until the sun rises. We’ve never chickened out before, and we’re not starting now. Plus, we don’t have anything on Terminus. We’ll have to reshoot all the footage where we talked about both of them if we don’t find anything for her.”

Martin decided to take what he could get. “Alright, I’ll be in the entrance hall.”

Martin walked into the entrance hall and settled into one of the rather uncomfortable chairs clearly meant for visitors. While he was unsettled by the paranormal, whether he was alone or not when he encountered it made no difference to him. In fact, he rather preferred to be alone in general, and he found it much easier to be less on edge without Tim and Melanie’s strong personalities in the room. He took out the notebook he always kept on him to record poetry inspiration intending to look over what he had written tonight. Real emotions tend to lead to good poetry, especially fear.

“Hello.”

Martin nearly threw his notebook across the room as he was startled by a voice coming from the doorway to his left. The doorway that lead to the living room, where they had their first supernatural experience that night. He trembled as he slowly looked towards the voice.

He saw… a normal man. The man was tall and pretty thin, but not to an inhuman extent. He had dark skin that contrasted clearly with light scars that covered visible skin. He wore glasses that did nothing to hide his bright, piercing green eyes and had shoulder length hair with streaks of grey. All in all, it was nearly impossible to guess how old he might have been, but if it weren’t for the grey hair, Martin would put him in his late 20s or early 30s. He was wearing, honest to God, a sweater vest over a long sleeved white button-up and slacks. He was somehow able to pull the look off, but Martin wasn’t sure how. He realized he was staring at the man and blushed, then remembered where he was and scrambled to his feet.

“Hi, uh, I’m Martin, a-and you are?” Martin extended a hand as he crossed the room to greet the stranger. 

“What are you doing in my house?” He raised an eyebrow instead of taking Martin’s outstretched hand.

Martin looked at him in confusion. “I’m sorry, your house..?”

The man gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes, my house, go get your delinquent friends and get out. Now.”

Something in the man's tone of voice made Martin think he didn't want to make him repeat himself again. “A-Alright we’ll be leaving then. Goodbye it was nice to meet you!” Martin grabbed his notebook from the ground and left the room hastily, calling the last part over his shoulder in a rush. However, when he looked back to nervously wave farewell, the man was already gone.

* * *

“-So here’s a picture I found of them before they died.” Tim held the picture in front of the camera before handing it to Melanie. They had decided to keep filming without Martin, just in case anything else happened while they were waiting, and were performing in front of the camera set up on a tripod.

Melanie looked at the polaroid with wide eyes. “Wow,” she said under her breath quietly. Not quietly enough, however, as Tim heard it.

“Right? They were smokin’. Too bad they’re trying to torment us like this. I don’t think I’d mind if they tormented us another way.” Tim winked at the camera. Melanie hit him on the shoulder.

“Her? Yeah. Him? Not so much. How did someone looking like her end up with someone like him? What’s their story?”

“They- Oh, hold on Melanie, it looks like the camera just turned off. Let me get that.”

Melanie looked up from the photo she had still been staring at and realized the light on the camera had indeed just gone off. She waited for Tim to set it back up, come back, and clap before she asked again. “What’s their story?”

Tim sobered up when she asked that and she followed his lead. “They’re a bit of a mystery, but what we do know is somber. They were about our age when they died a couple of decades ago. We don’t know their names, but they were found dead in this house. It seems she killed herself rather gruesomely and he found her body, then gouged his eyes out and bled to death. No one knows who they are or why they did it. It’s hard to find anything on them, the only information I’ve been able to find is a tape recording of the original police report when they were found.”

Melanie folded her arms and fell into their old joking routine while the gears in her brain were spinning, thinking about the haunting woman in the picture with no name. “And how did you get that tape recording, Tim?”

Tim winked at the camera again. “A gentleman never reveals his secrets, Melanie.”

At that point, Martin came running into the room, shoes loud on the wooden floor. He saw they were filming and stopped dead on his feet, closing his already open mouth. Melanie sighed, then walked over and stopped the recording. “What is it, Martin?” she asked.

“The- uh, there was a man? In the entrance hall? He said it was his house? And that we need to leave?” Martin’s voice went higher with the end of every sentence in his nervousness, making it sound like he was asking them questions instead of telling them what happened.

“What are you talking about? We already talked to the owner, he’s happy to let ghost hunters in here. He was in the lobby?” Tim asked.

Martin shook his head. “No it was, ah, it was someone else? He didn’t tell me his name. He was tall and wearing a sweater vest?”

Melanie’s eyes widened and she dug the picture Tim gave her out of her pocket. “He didn’t look like this, did he?” She handed Martin the polaroid. Martin took it and gasped.

“That’s him! Where did you get this?” 

Tim and Melanie exchanged a glance. Tim spoke up first, enunciating every syllable clearly: “Martin. That’s the Ceaseless Watcher.”

Martin laughed in shock. “What? No, seriously, what? That’s the guy I saw in the lobby. He didn’t look spooky to me, he just looked like a normal guy. I was worried he’d call the police, not curse us.”

Melanie spoke up then. “Did you see her too? The girl? Terminus?” There was something in her voice neither Martin nor Tim could place when she asked.

Martin answered, “Uh, no. Yeah, no, it was just the guy. That’s the Ceaseless Watcher, seriously? I thought he would look more like, you know, the thing in the video from earlier.”

Tim shook his head. “Well, let’s go look and see if he’s still there.” He walked out of the room and Martin followed, Melanie lagging behind as she stared at the polaroid again.


	2. i know who you could be

Jon returned to his and Georgie’s room to find Georgie sitting cross-legged on their bed, leaning back with her arms propping her up. 

“What were you doing out there?” She questioned.

“We’ve got ghost hunters again.”

“Again? Were you fucking with them? You know you should just ignore them. They’ll come back if you give them anything!”

“Well, what do you want me to do, _not_ watch to make sure they leave?”

Georgie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure, you weren’t appearing in their videos for fun. Don’t come crying to me when you have to go destroy the footage later.”

“You know I was already planning on destroying it. _And_ I already told them to leave. Without giving them anything to film” Jon gestured to the decidedly normal body he walked in with to make his point. Then, he took a deep breath and released his human form, returning to the blinded and bloody visage he defaulted to if he didn’t focus hard enough. “Now shush, they’re talking about us.” Jon’s body faded to translucence as he focused on the camera set up in the hallway.

* * *

“-So here’s a picture I found of them before they died.”

Jon saw the handsome man they called Tim standing in front of his eye, with the short woman named Melanie standing next to him. He was turning a picture of Jon and Georgie to face the eye. How on earth did he find that? Daisy had destroyed all records of his and Georgie’s existence decades ago. He might have to ask her about that.

Tim passed the photo to Melanie and she let out a “Wow,” under her breath. Jon didn’t know what to make of that. He kept watching.

“Right? They were _smokin’_. Too bad they’re trying to torment us like this. I don’t think I’d mind if they tormented us another way.” Jon startled at Tim winking at him, flickering into view for Georgie to see for a moment. He typically wasn’t good at picking up innuendo, and hadn’t had any directed at _him_ for decades, but Tim’s meaning was clear. He focused on the view through the ghost hunters’ camera again.

The short woman was speaking. “Her? Yeah. Him? Not so much. How did someone looking like her end up with someone like him? What’s their story?” Jon scoffed at that. He wasn’t that bad looking. That was uncalled for. He turned off the camera he was looking through in retaliation, and focused on manifesting back in his room with Georgie. 

“They’re not leaving, but I don’t think the man I talked to got back to his friends yet. He definitely seemed convinced, don’t worry,” Jon claimed smugly.

* * *

Melanie couldn’t stop staring at the picture of the couple they were hunting. More specifically, she couldn’t stop staring at the woman. She was _gorgeous_ , tall, dark, and beautiful. Her outfit was very much a product of her time, but somehow Melanie knew that if she saw her wearing it today, she’d still be able to pull it off. She wore high waisted flared pants with a belt, and despite the picture being in black and white, the shade of gray seemed to indicate the pants were colored. Paired with it she wore a white halter crop top. Her short hair had been teased into an afro and she was grinning from ear to ear, putting up a peace sign with her arm around the man’s shoulders. The man, on the other hand, was frowning, almost glaring at the camera with dark eyes. He was wearing a sweater vest with black slacks and was slouching, making him the same height as the woman. He, quite frankly, seemed like a douche. She didn’t even know these people’s names, but she knew this man didn’t deserve that woman.

“Melanie?”

She was brought out of her musing by Tim calling her name from the other room. God, had she really spaced out so bad she didn’t notice them leaving the room? Get it together, King. She followed Tim and Martin to the entrance hall to confront the douchebag in the photo.

Of course, the douchebag in the photo was no longer in the entrance hall.

“I swear he was here!” Martin professed.

Melanie let out a sigh. “Let’s just keep making our way through the house until we get enough footage, okay? Haunted houses usually don’t get to you this much, Martin.”

“It’s not getting to me, he was really there! I talked to him and everything!”

Tim shook his head as Melanie left the room, turning to follow suit. Martin let out a frustrated sigh, then followed as well, unable to shake the feeling something was watching, amused by his frustration.

* * *

They continued through the house with no other supernatural encounters, and Melanie was getting irritated. Other than issues with the camera malfunctioning, they hadn’t been able to catch anything more of the Ceaseless Watcher, much less Terminus. What she really wanted was to find out more about the enigmatic ghost, and the woman she had been in life. She was determined to find out why all ghost hunters avoided this place and what had happened to the woman. It would make a great video, yes, but at this point Melanie was in it simply for her own curiosity, and she would not be deterred once she had set her mind to something. 

Martin was setting up their tripod and camera in the hallway while Melanie and Tim scouted out other locations to film in. They were in what looked to be an extra bedroom turned office, and it looked surprisingly modern. There was no computer as one would expect in any contemporary office, but there were some books lining the shelves that definitely had not been released while the pair had been alive. 

“Who put these here?” Melanie asked.

“What?”

“The books. I recognize this one, it’s about the history of ghosts. Every ghost hunter has read it. But it’s not as old as the rest of the house, and the person who owns the place wouldn’t only keep random books here. Look, the rest on this shelf are recent too.” Melanie pointed out one of the shelves up against the wall of the room.

“They must belong to the spooky ghosts’ then, reading up on themselves.” Tim replied.

“You’re joking, but seriously, who else would even do that? Put new books in an abandoned house? And they’re not all ghost-themed, this one is about activism. And there’s one here about music theory!”

Tim gave her a questioning look. “Shouldn’t we be saving this content for the video? I could make some good jokes about those.”

“Oh yeah, the video. You’re right.”

“Did you forget why we’re here Melanie? Rebooting our career, proving ourselves to the world, sticking it to the man, all that? You gave us a whole speech on the drive over.” Tim asked with a tone of voice that suggested he thought she was losing it.

“Of course not! I was just curious, that’s all,” Melanie responded defensively. “Let’s go see if Martin’s ready for us.”

* * *

“What are you still doing here?”

Martin startled, accidentally hitting the tripod he was trying to set up and knocking it over. He whipped around to find the source of the familiar voice, only to find the man wearing the sweater vest standing a couple steps directly behind him.

“Fu- Jesus, you scared me.”

The corners of the man’s lips raised a fraction in what Martin would almost assume was a smile if it didn’t seem so wrong to attribute to the stoic and intimidating man from earlier. Surely he wasn't amused by scaring Martin, was he?

“Look, I’m sorry, I know you want us to leave, but you don’t know my boss.” Martin got out before the man could speak.

“You’re right. I don’t know your boss. But I do know this is the second time you have forced me to ask you to leave, and you will not like what happens if you’re asked a third time.” 

“You’re going to have to talk to my boss about that, she decides when we stay or when we go. And quite frankly, I don’t believe you have any more right to be here than we do. At least we got permission from the owner before we came here for our show.” 

The man laughed at that. “The owner? That man’s word means nothing here. And I am not one of you ghost hunters.” He said with clear disdain in his voice and a grimace. “So I will tell you again. Leave. Now.” 

“And I’m telling _you_ you are really going to have to speak to my boss. Here, how about you stay here and I go get her.” Martin started walking away before he could check if the stranger agreed, only for Melanie and Tim to open the door into the hallway. “There she is, Melanie, this man-” The words died on Martin’s lips as Martin turned around to find the man had vanished again. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” 

Tim snickered. “What, was your man here again? You’ll have to introduce us sometime.” 

“Shut up, Tim.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on twitter @fvrszn :D i'd love to talk about this au


	3. i find happiness in all the wrong places

* * *

“Um… Georgie. Your turn.”

Georgie sighed and bookmarked the book she was reading, sprawled on her back with her legs dangling off the bed. “Seriously Jon, how hard is it to scare off three ghost hunters? Where are they?”

Jon took a moment to check the scenery out of the ghost hunters’ cameras. “Oh shit,” he said, “They’re almost here.”

“You let them get all the way here? Jesus. I’ll get them.” Georgie set her book down on top of a pile on her nightstand and stood up, moving to walk out of the room

Jon caught her hand as she walked past and she looked at him. “Georgie, have you ever thought… I mean…” He let go of her hand as he tried to get the thought out. “Nevermind.”

Georgie crossed her arms. “Jon, we’ve known each other our whole deaths. You know you can ask me anything. What is it?”

“Well… Have you ever thought about… Not scaring off the ghost hunters?”

Georgie looked at him like he was out of his mind. “What? You know we can’t do that. You _know_ what will happen if we let people explore this house fully.”

“Oh, God, no, not like that. I just mean… Well, aren’t you lonely?”

Georgie stared at him for a moment and then grinned, smacking him playfully on the shoulder. “What, am I not enough for you anymore? You want to replace me with some handsome ghost hunter?” She winked.

Jon groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “You know that’s not what I meant! I just thought, well, these people seem, you know, like they’re actually into ghost hunting, like they’re not just in it for the money. I just thought… If anyone would understand our situation, it’s them.”

Georgie’s grin turned into a gentle look. “I’ll think about it. But Jon, you know how risky that is for us.”

“I do.” Jon looked at her somberly. She nodded, and turned to leave.

* * *

Melanie pushed the group to press on and explore the rest of the house, but it seemed like her heart was no longer in it. At least, like her heart was no longer in recording footage of their exploration. She was as motivated and passionate as ever when it came to exploring the house, she just… kept forgetting to tell Martin to start filming, and completely ignored the camera when it was on. After exploring almost the entirety of the second floor, Tim decided to confront her.

“Melanie, what has gotten into you? You’re completely ignoring the camera. I don’t think any of the footage on this floor has even been usable.”

Melanie bristled defensively on reflex, then conceded. She knew Tim was right. “Honestly Tim? I don’t care about the video anymore.” Martin gasped, and Melanie glared at him, then continued, “I just want to know what is up with this place! Why is the only information on them a police report without any identifying information? Why are there new books in an abandoned house? Why did Martin see someone who looked exactly like the Ceaseless Watcher when he hadn’t seen the picture before? And why don’t they want us here? We can make our next video anywhere. This? I think this is the real thing.”

“The Melanie King _I_ know wouldn’t abandon the video that’s going to ‘save our career’ just because the ghost happened to be real! I thought we were supposed to go into _all_ of these assuming the ghost could be real! Have you not even believed this whole time? You dragged us here when I said it was a bad idea, we’re not half-assing it. You put us all in danger, we’re not getting nothing out of this trip. We are putting out the video.”

“Mm, no you’re not.”

The three ghost hunters whipped their heads around to look for the source of the voice. 

“Listen, I respect you guys for getting this far and not getting scared by Jon, because he really isn’t scary, and it’s kind of pathetic when people do get scared by him, but you really do have to leave.” Georgie had slipped in through the door behind the ghost hunters, them being too busy arguing to hear the door creak

“Oh my God, you’re her! Terminus!” Melanie exclaimed, then turned to Tim and whisper shouted, “Tim! It’s her!”

The woman sighed. “Is that what they call me these days? Not very catchy.”

“Yes! What- I- Wh- I have so many questions I don’t know where to start. Who _are_ you?”

“I suppose if you’ve made it this far I owe you some answers. Or at least a name. I’m Georgie Barker. If you delete the footage you took here, I’ll answer some of your questions.”

“I’m Melanie. And yes, done, of course. Martin?” 

Tim started to protest, and Martin looked at Melanie in shock. “Are you sure? You said people would eat this shit up, you loved this footage.”

“God, I’ll just do it.” Before anyone could protest further, Melanie took the camera from off the tripod and deleted the videos. She looked back up to Georgie. “Done.”

“Wow, I… Okay. What do you want to know?” Georgie asked, a little confused by how easy it was to get her to agree not to release footage from their house. Maybe Jon was right. They weren’t in it for the money.

The first question came from Martin. “Are you really a ghost?”

“I guess it depends on what you consider a ghost, but I died and I’m still here. So, yes, I suppose.”

That seemed to startle him. It seemed to startle Melanie a little as well, but she tried not to show it. Tim, on the other hand, seemed unphased by the information. He was the one with the next question.

“What makes someone become a ghost?”

Georgie laughed a little at that. “When I find out I’ll be sure to tell you. It probably has something to do with the… unique circumstances of my death, but I can’t know for sure.”

The group looked unsatisfied with that answer, which was fair. Georgie wasn’t satisfied with it either. She’d researched enough “true” ghost stories since she’d died trying to figure the answer to that question out to know how unsatisfying that answer was.

Then, it was Melanie’s turn. “Are you lonely?”

Georgie was taken aback by such a forward question that so closely mimicked the conversation she had just had with Jon. Of course she was. They both were. They hadn’t been able to talk to anyone new in fifty years, left with only each other for company. Time felt like it passed differently since she died it still had been a long time since Georgie had to even consider anyone’s companionship but Jon’s. “I… Yes.”

The ghost hunters looked at her with varying degrees of pity, and she bristled slightly. It had been such a long time since she had had to consider sharing her feelings with other people, and she felt vulnerable giving that information away. Until she looked at Melanie.

In Melanie’s eyes she didn’t see pity, she saw _anger_ , but Georgie knew it wasn’t directed at her. She could tell Melanie was angry on her behalf, at the world or the universe for putting her in this situation, undead forever, and Georgie felt a warmth in her chest, a fondness she hadn’t felt in a very long time. She didn’t know what to do with that feeling, so she ignored it. After that awkward pause she asked, “Any other questions?”

Martin was the first with a question again. “W-What about the other guy? The Ceaseless Watcher?” 

“Oh, that was Jon. Sorry about him.” Georgie didn’t sound sorry. The way she said Jon’s name indicated a lifetime of memories, a relationship that couldn’t be categorized with words, so she didn’t try.

“Is he… you know. Like you?” Martin asked nervously.

“Yes.” 

Martin fell quiet as he processed that information.

Out of nowhere, Melanie crossed the distance between her and Georgie in a few paces and made a move to touch her on the arm. She looked shocked to find Georgie to be completely corporeal, if much colder than a living human. She looked up from where her hand was on Georgie’s arm, right into her eyes.

“Do you want a friend?” Melanie asked.

Georgie tried to process the question, looking into Melanie’s eyes with confusion. “Why?”

“Well, you said you were lonely, so…”

“No, why would _you_ do that? What could you possibly get out of hanging out with a dead woman?”

Melanie’s face reddened slightly and she looked away for a moment, leaving Georgie with a suspicion she knew what Melanie was thinking. “I just… I think I’d like to spend more time with you. You’re fascinating. I want to get to know you.”

They gazed into each other's eyes for another moment and then Georgie nodded. “Okay,” she said, “I’d like to try.” She looked to the other members of Melanie’s team. “Well. You guys know where to find me and Jon. It’s not like we need to check our schedule or anything.” Tim gave a little laugh at her joke. Melanie looked to the rest of her team to check their reactions, becoming relieved to find them smiling, not mad. 

Even Tim seemed to have been won over by Georgie’s charisma. “We’d love to see you again.”

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Melanie asserted.

“Can you guys drink tea and eat food or…?” Martin asked.

“We don’t need to, but we can. I enjoy it more than Jon does.” Georgie replied.

Martin made a note of something in the notebook he kept with him.

Georgie waved at them and left the room as they packed up their cameras and equipment. Melanie turned to Tim and Martin. “Thank you guys for indulging me.”

Tim chuckled, “Listen Melanie, I know a friend in need of a wingman when I see one. I’m proud of you. I didn’t want to come here in the first place, I already have another location lined up to visit.”

Martin chimed in, “I had a good time. It was nice to meet the Cea- Jon. And to learn that ghosts are real.”

Melanie smiled at them. She looked forward to seeing Georgie again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on twitter @fvrszn and tumblr @re2<3 Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> I am once again asking for you to leave comments<3


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